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I cant seem to find answer to this so I am asking LXer readers..

What brands of laptops actually support booting from a USB device, I know HP and Dell do not..and never will it seems. I currently have a HP laptop that the DVD-ROM drive is going out on and eventually would like to find a not too expensive new lappy to replace it.

But if I am looking for a laptop I can actually boot from a USB where should I look? I don't want a netbook, they are just too small for me, I need to be able to type and not feel like I have a playskool toy in my hands (no offense) so I want a regular lappy that will let me experiment with distros on a USB stick.

I kinda feel like a dork for not being able to find any info on this on my own but all I'm able to find is old forum posts and other BS on Google.

I've booted both HP and Dell laptops from USB, as well as Toshiba..
Sometimes you have to tweak the bios settings, sometimes not.
You often have to use the boot menu.
Sometimes you have to reboot from it a few times before the boot menu will see the device.

At least on older laptops, there are sometimes tricks that you have to follow. One (probably around 2005) I had to insert the USB drive, then go to the BIOS. If there was not a USB drive attached, it wouldn't let me change to boot from USB. I also had to change two settings, one was basically hidden, so while you should be able to do it, it may not be trivial.

Yeah, most that I've seen support USB booting somehow.
You just have to fiddle with the boot menu and bios until you get it working.
You generally want the USB device plugged in before you turn it on for best success in getting it to eventually work.

Every HP I have ever own WILL NOT boot from USB no matter what I have tried so Id like to hear how you did it techiem2 just out of curiosity. There is no option to boot from a USB device in their BIOS. I own both a Compaq desktop and a HP laptop and neither can boot from USB, did you install another BIOS?

I will not by either a Compaq or HP again because their BIOS's are archaic..

On my old work laptop (Compaq V5101) I seem to recall (It's at work):
Plug in flash drive
Power on
Hit key for boot menu
Hit option for bios if drive doesn't show up
Flash drive might show up in boot options
If not reboot and try again

I seem to recall some machines needing a few reboots before it will see the flash drive for the boot menu/bios.
Some you need to change bios (if it decides to treat it like a hard disk and therefore requires you to change the boot disk order), some just show up in boot menu.
It seems fairly random by model.

On that same note, it REALLY annoys me when machines give you a boot menu and show a + next to disk drives because there is more than one disk detected (maybe internal + flash drive), but as far as I can tell there is no way to expand it to pick which one to use, thus forcing you to change the disk boot order in bios.

I guess my laptop is just a little too old then..I have no option for flash drive..I can boot from floppy though..ugh..this thing doesn't even have a floppy..I must have the only computers in the world with bios from 1940..Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

So apparently HP and Compaq sell computers that will boot from USB now? Or is it just certain models?

AS far as I'm aware it's all model, but you will have to find the magic key that brigs up the Boot menu. I have the same "issue" on my pioneer laptops and net books. Once you have the boot menu you can choose the boot device.

My laptop is from 2004 at the youngest..came with XP home on it. The Compaq I got off of Overstock.com had Vista pre-installed but it wouldn't even boot it correctly before I wiped it and put Linux on it so I think I am just the victim of some stone age BIOS's...:-(

I can't speak for HP's (yet, I should have some experience with them soon), but all the Dell laptops I've seen recently will boot from a USB device. Simply press F12 during bootup to get to the boot menu screen, and if a USB device is plugged in you should have the option to boot from it.

Scott, I think USB booting only really started to be offered in a ubiquitous fashion in 2005. My Dell desktop from that era will USB boot, but nothing in my stable of 2000-02 laptops (Gateway, Toshiba) will do it.

We're getting to the point where if you can boot from USB, why burn an ISO to a CD or DVD if you don't have to? Saves discs and trouble.

We were donated a few nice Acer laptops, mid to upper tier stuff...Travelmates 5720 and 8210's. They boot from usb just fine on hitting F12 and choosing usb device. I personally use a Dell D600. It's an old 1.2 gig single core P3 but it runs so well I haven't found any reasons to replace it. It too boots from usb by hitting the F12 button. These D600's are little work horses but they do not have an optical device. As mentioned in another post, I really don't have much use for a laptop cd/dvd rom anymore.

It seems to me that everyone I know who works in IT or uses their laptop for serious work is using an Acer of some sort. The aforementioned models are really desktop replacements and at 7 lbs are not "carrier friendly". At least not for any amount of time. Of course all the mini machines I've used boot to usb.

Quoting:you start with a CD and then chainload to an image somewhere else?

Yeah, that's one of the possibilities.
Or you start with GRUB on your harddrive, which is already there, and from GRUB on the harddrive you could boot from USB.

Also, it should be possible to copy an .ISO or .IMG file to some filesystem on your harddisk, and use SYSLINUX to boot the .ISO. Newer GRUB versions (I believe GRUB2?) should also be able to boot from .ISO.